carl, td04 16g is a very poor turbine/compressor combo. 16g is a compressor that fits well with the TD05 turbines. A great proposition would be however a TD04HL-19T (I built quite a few of these for other platforms and they are great). It does seem there are some builders who enjoy building turbos that have large mismatches without considering the basics, ce la vie.

I'm not sure I would say people don't want to spend the kind of money it takes to build this kind of kit. I just spent $15k building a 9 year old EVO. I spent $15k on my 335i before I sold it. The problem is with the lack of options people don't want to over pay for things that should cost much less, just like the Level ten upgrade and the Vishnu single kit. The Level ten upgrade is $4,498 if you send them your tranny first. I find that to be over priced. They can charge that because there are no other options. Same reason only 12 ST kits have been sold. People don't want to over pay for it but they can charge what they want to because they are the only option. If that kit was $1400 less, it would have sold many more kits. I guarantee it. It's all about what you are getting for your hard earned $$$$. I have a feeling your TT kits will outsell the ST kit in no time if it does indeed come out around the price you're shooting for. Hell if my project 135i wasn't an AT or there was a better tranny rebuild option, I'd just ship you the car to test fit the 135i kit on it. It's all about people feeling they've gotten a good deal.

Originally Posted by VargasTurboTech

This thread is exactly why we are working on other options besides the stage 3. We are confident it is going to perform as advertised with the twin GTX's. But people just don't want to spend the kind of money it takes to build a kit like this. I know a lot of people are curious about stage 3, but I am not sure that translates into kit sales. Halfway through the LPFP swap on the test car, clutch comes in tomorrow, prototype should be finalized this week. Lets keep our fingers crossed for firing it up end of next week, or weekend.

It looks like they are a great choice if you're replacing everything. For a cheap plug and play kit it seems like it would be easier to fit TD04 hardware in place of TD03s.

Perhaps this is the wrong platform for 'cheap' plug and play kits? RBs and I assume Vargas Stage 2s are going to be about as good as plug and play gets on this platform. If you're already spending $$$ on custom manifolds and other hardware, why would you want to save only a small amount of money by getting old turbos and giving up a load of response, powerband, and peak power?

Perhaps this is the wrong platform for 'cheap' plug and play kits? RBs and I assume Vargas Stage 2s are going to be about as good as plug and play gets on this platform. If you're already spending $$$ on custom manifolds and other hardware, why would you want to save only a small amount of money by getting old turbos and giving up a load of response, powerband, and peak power?

The options are continuing to grow. Carl is right about custom housings and plug and play turbos, I simply said I don't think 16G is the way to go.

I agree that this is a more expensive platform and people will generally be willing to spend a little more. Maybe even more than I'm thinking. The problem with RBs and Stage IIs is that a person who is used to other platforms is used to being able to get more than a 20-25% gain from replacing turbos. If it really is impossible to go bigger on replacement turbos then they'll just have to deal with that, but I don't think that's true. As soon as the market is big enough to justify custom factory-footprint housings I'm betting that someone will do it. And while they won't be able to match the performance of a big ST or Stage III, they could probably cut the difference in half for half the price. Just look at what FP was able to do for the EVOs using custom housings. If I can get 65 lb/min from replacement turbos versus 80lb/min by completely replacing everything at twice the cost, I'm going to go with the replacement turbos. Besides saving money, it will confuse the dealer a lot less if/when I need to get work done there AND it won't have any special software needs other than a map that provides the correct WGDC. All the same advantages as RB and Stage II.

I say all this as one of the more likely people to pony up for Stage IIIs if I can be convinced that they'll go a few years before having to deal with any leaks or failures. I want/need factory reliability (such as it is) and I figure I'm more likely to get that from factory footprint parts.

The way the world works is usually things improve with time. But it's just a matter of how much time can you stomach? Life is short, things and interests change. Should you have fun with your interests today, or defer them until an unknown later date? The answer to that lies in truly how much of an enthusiast you are today. If you are N54 for life and have years to wait for what could be, then by all means do that. I have worked several platforms and unfortunately these types of platforms rarely get big market support. The fact is that's why you have builders such as RB, FFTEC/Vishnu, and Vargas. This is a niche market, and I highly suspect it will always be one. Especially seeing that the chassis and other limitations seem to hold it up to a high 10 car at best. Too many bottlenecks, and becomes a massive money pit trying to push the envelope. Love the platform, but my $.02.

The way the world works is usually things improve with time. But it's just a matter of how much time can you stomach? Life is short, things and interests change. Should you have fun with your interests today, or defer them until an unknown later date? The answer to that lies in truly how much of an enthusiast you are today. If you are N54 for life and have years to wait for what could be, then by all means do that. I have worked several platforms and unfortunately these types of platforms rarely get big market support. The fact is that's why you have builders such as RB, FFTEC/Vishnu, and Vargas. This is a niche market, and I highly suspect it will always be one. Especially seeing that the chassis and other limitations seem to hold it up to a high 10 car at best. Too many bottlenecks, and becomes a massive money pit trying to push the envelope. Love the platform, but my $.02.

How far this platform goes is totally going to depend on limits that have not been yet determined and how much the chassis depreciates. At this point in time the platform is still way too expensive to get a huge following, but after its 10-20 years old I could see people racing it IF component prices drop and more options open up.

For whats its worth, I chose this platform for that exact reason. Most big companies are staying away which leaves a lot of room for development. Trying to jump into a pool full of vendors all doing the same thing is usually a recipe for frustration. I don't think having the N54 as your only platform would really be a solid long term goal or viable business plan. We are already branching out into other performance platforms now that I made the decision to move back in to the performance turbocharger arena, and things are looking bright. With that said, totally excited to see what we can do with the N54 in the next 12 months. I see it moving forward at a much faster pace than it has in the past few years

i certainly hope so Tony. Moving forward at a much faster pace that is.

Originally Posted by VargasTurboTech

For whats its worth, I chose this platform for that exact reason. Most big companies are staying away which leaves a lot of room for development. Trying to jump into a pool full of vendors all doing the same thing is usually a recipe for frustration. I don't think having the N54 as your only platform would really be a solid long term goal or viable business plan. We are already branching out into other performance platforms now that I made the decision to move back in to the performance turbocharger arena, and things are looking bright. With that said, totally excited to see what we can do with the N54 in the next 12 months. I see it moving forward at a much faster pace than it has in the past few years

For whats its worth, I chose this platform for that exact reason. Most big companies are staying away which leaves a lot of room for development. Trying to jump into a pool full of vendors all doing the same thing is usually a recipe for frustration. I don't think having the N54 as your only platform would really be a solid long term goal or viable business plan. We are already branching out into other performance platforms now that I made the decision to move back in to the performance turbocharger arena, and things are looking bright. With that said, totally excited to see what we can do with the N54 in the next 12 months. I see it moving forward at a much faster pace than it has in the past few years

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I feel like nobody in the N55 market seems to be interested in pushing the platform.

We are very interested and see it as the next step in the N54-55 platform. We are almost to the place in our N54 turbos where we can turn our focus on something else. The N55, N20 and new M3 all have us very interested. the N55 is next on list though. You guys are not forgotten. Thats a promise